[zamalek]

> design the database from the standpont of a node being down for a month.

It uses Raft, so this should be handled by nature. If you are referring to writes to said node (not that Raft would allow it), you are delving into CAP theorem and what you are suggesting is impossible (unless you don't care about consistency).

[zbentley]

Raft is a consensus protocol. It doesn't handle what you actually do during long partitions (stop writes if quorum is lost? Indicate that consistency may be compromised in some other way?) Or how to handle long-lost nodes rejoining (do they rejoin no matter how long they've been gone and service stale reads? Does the cluster "forget" them after some period of time? If so, how do you synchronize the act of forgetting so you don't end up in split brain if only some healthy nodes have forgotten their long-lost brother when it comes back online?)

Raft is not "use this library and your distributed system Just Works". It's a low level building block, like TLS--and nobody says "just use OpenSSL and your app is fully secure".